The Legacy of Vatican II‌ and the Problem of Religious Diversity

Editor’s note: The following is the concluding chapter (pp. 457-468) from the recently published book Jesus Christ, Scandal of Particularity: Vatican II, a Catholic Theology of Religions, Justification, and Truth (En Route Books and Media, 2024) by Eduardo J. Echeverria. It is posted here with the kind permission of the author.

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For God’s Word, by whom all things were made, was Himself made flesh so that as perfect man He might save all men and sum up all things in Himself. The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the center of the human race, the joy of every heart and the answer to all its yearnings. He it is Whom the Father raised from the dead, lifted on high and stationed at His right hand, making Him judge of the living and the dead. Enlivened and united in His Spirit, we journey toward the consummation of human history, one which fully accords with the counsel of God’s love: “To reestablish all things in Christ, both those in the heavens and those on the earth” (Eph. 11:10).¹

Whatever good or truth is found amongst them [non-Christian religions] is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel For the Church is compelled by the Holy Spirit to do her part that God’s plan may be fully realized, whereby He has constituted Christ as the source of salvation for the whole world Through her work, whatever good is in the minds and hearts of men, whatever good lies latent in the religious practices and cultures of diverse peoples, is not only saved from destruction but is also cleansed, raised up and perfected unto the glory of God, the confusion of the devil and the happiness of man.²

Missionary activity is nothing else, and nothing less, than the manifestation of God’s plan, its epiphany and realization in the world and in history, in the course of which God, by means of mission, manifestly works out the history of salvation. [The Church] makes Christ present, the author of salvation. But whatever truth and grace are to be found among the nations, as a sort of secret presence of God, He frees from all taint of evil and restores to Christ its maker, who overthrows the devil’s domain and wards off the manifold malice of vice. And so, whatever good is found to be sown in the hearts and minds of men, or in the rites and cultures peculiar to various peoples, not only is not lost, but is healed, uplifted, and perfected for the glory of God, the shame of the demon, and the bliss of men. Thus, missionary activity tends toward eschatological fullness.³

The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of . . . life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself [2 Cor 5:18–19].⁴

In this concluding chapter, I state the five summative theses that capture the main emphases of this book.

First, fundamental to Vatican II’s theology of religions is the infallible dogmatic proposition, “Christ is the Light of nations. Because this is so, this Sacred Synod gathered together in the Holy Spirit eagerly desires, by proclaiming the Gospel to every creature, to bring the light of Christ to all men, a light brightly visible on the countenance of the Church.”⁵ Vatican II, as is evident in the above epigraphs, is gripped by St. Paul’s Colossian vision of cosmic redemption in Christ. “For by him all things were created . . . through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together . . . , that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things, . . . making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:16–20). Basic to this vision is the truth that the whole creation is recapitulated in Christ. “The Word of God, through whom all things were made, became man, he entered world history, taking that history into himself and recapitulating it.”⁶

In the written Word of God, the Lordship of Jesus Christ over creation and redemption is revealed (Phil 2:11). Thus, as the first epigraph states, “The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and civilization, the center of mankind, the joy of all hearts, and the fulfillment of all aspirations.” It follows from this vision of cosmic redemption that Christians are called to engage in the sanctification of the whole of life, the fallen creation, by transforming it through God’s grace in Christ.⁷

Thus, grace restores, renews, and transforms nature from within its own domain. Indeed, this is how the late philosopher-pope John Paul II describes the Church’s mission of evangelization and, in fact, “the purpose of the Gospel.” It is “‘to transform humanity from within and to make it new’. Like the yeast which leavens the whole measure of dough (cf. Mt 13:33), the Gospel is meant to permeate all cultures and give them life from within, so that they may express the full truth about the human person and about human life.”⁸ In sum, grace restores or renews nature, meaning thereby that God’s grace in Christ restores all life to its fullness, penetrating and perfecting and transforming the fallen creation from within its own order, bringing creation into conformity with his will and purpose. Paul VI adds, “The purpose of evangelization is therefore precisely this interior change, and if it had to be expressed in one sentence the best way of stating it would be to say that the Church evangelizes when she seeks to convert, solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the personal and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieu which are theirs.”⁹

Second, what is the significance of general revelation in a Catholic theology of religions? God reveals himself to all men at all times and all places in and through the works of creation, and hence this “revelation is not limited to certain people, places, or times, but is truly general.”¹⁰ In this connection, we should note what St. Paul writes in Romans 1 and 2, and St. Luke in Acts 14, 17, namely, that God has not left himself without witness, he makes himself known to all men through his attributes, such as his power and majesty and his will, by means of the things that he has made as well as through conscience (“the law written on the heart”). In short, general revelation is God’s revelation of himself in and through the works of creation.

I spoke earlier of common grace, which is a gift of God’s grace in Christ through the work of the Spirit. This is a universal favor that is a non-saving grace at work in the whole of creation, indeed, granted to humanity as such, to believer and unbeliever alike (Matt 5:45), in their post-fall condition enabling the recognition by God’s grace, undeserved and sovereignly bestowed, of the truth, beauty, and goodness that is present also in the pagan world. However, “To say that the other religious traditions include elements of grace does not imply that everything in them is the result of grace. For sin has been at work in the world, and so religious traditions, notwithstanding their positive values, reflect the limitations of the human spirit, sometimes inclined to choose evil.”¹¹ The presence of sin and evil is recognized in the second and third epigraph above. Despite general revelation, its human reception is open to resistance and hence to distortion, misinterpretation, and rejection (Rom 1:18–23).

Put differently, one must not overlook the place of sin that is at the root of man’s resistance. John Paul II correctly states, “Moreover, man, who was created for freedom, bears within himself the wound of original sin, which constantly draws him towards evil and puts him in need of redemption. Not only is this doctrine an integral part of Christian revelation; it also has great hermeneutical value insofar as it helps one to understand human reality.”¹² This doctrine is overlooked in Nostra Aetate §2, which speaks of those things in other religions that are “true and holy” and reflect a “ray of that Truth, which enlightens all human beings.” The Word does not illuminate all human beings because they resist the light. Consider John 1:5, 10. “And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it.” “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” Both of these verses speak “of the negative reaction of the world to the coming of the light.” Reformed biblical theologian Herman Ridderbos rightly notes that John 1:9 “describes light in its fullness and universality.” But, he adds, “It does not say that every individual is in fact enlightened by the light.”¹³ Here, too, this document overlooks that the human reception of that Christological light is open to resistance and hence to distortion, misinterpretation, and rejection, and hence overlooks the place of sin that is at the root of man’s resistance.

John Paul II does not overlook sin as the root of man’s resistance. In his reflections on the meaning of Assisi, he distinguishes between the orders of divine creation and redemption and the order of the fall into sin. In this context of the fall into sin, John Paul locates “religious differences” because they do not “derive from the design of God.” The Catholic tradition rejects religious relativism or pluralism because all religions are not equally vehicles of salvation. John Paul says, “If it is the order of unity that goes back to creation and redemption and is therefore, in this sense, ‘divine’, such differences—and even religious divergences—go back to a ‘human fact’, and must be overcome in progress towards the realization of the mighty plan of [salvific] unity which dominates the creation.”¹⁴ Therefore, the plurality of religions belongs to the order of the fall into sin and hence needs removal. It belongs to this order because it reflects the human reception of that “offer,” “call,” and “grace” such that man is open to resistance and hence to distorting, misinterpreting, and rejecting God’s revelation in creation and redemption in Christ. John Paul says, these differences reveal “the limitations, the evolutions and the falls of the human spirit which is undermined by the spirit of evil in history (LG no. 16).”

Roger Trigg, whose views I discuss in Chapter 5, argues that religious differences are such that they “are diverse and mutually incompatible,” so much so that “one can also feel that their divisions are insuperable.” Thus, the question is raised why the one God of monotheism allows diverse beliefs. The brief answer to this question is that “humans are free and responsible for their choices.”¹⁵ In particular, the focus should be on religious diversity and their corresponding conflicting truth claims. Hence, says Trigg, “religious disagreement is, above all, a disagreement about what is true.”¹⁶ Thus, “Given that there are many religions, with diverse views about what ultimately exists, what grounds are there for believing in one God in the first place?”¹⁷ In sum, “Religious diversity is, however, part of a wider problem. It raises deep questions about the possibility of human rationality, the role of human freedom and the accessibility of truth. No consideration of diversity should avoid these larger issues.”¹⁸

These questions about reconciling religious diversity with the One God of the Christian faith means that Nostra Aetate is, as Aidan Nichols correctly states, “less than balanced or comprehensive and thus, by implication, needs supplementation, whether from another Council or from other sources.”¹⁹ Benedict XVI he makes a relevant and important point on the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican II regarding the reception of Nostra Aetate. “In the process of active reception [of Nostra Aetate], a weakness in this otherwise extraordinary text has gradually emerged: it speaks of religion solely in a positive way and it disregards the sick and distorted forms of religion which, from the historical and theological viewpoints, are of far-reaching importance; for this reason the Christian faith, from the outset, adopted a critical stance towards religion, both internally and externally.”²⁰

Third, in Vatican II’s theology of religions we make the distinction between Christ’s redemptive work being ontologically and causally necessary for salvation—that there is no salvation without Christ’s saving work—but not epistemically necessary. Now, the problem is not with this distinction as such, but rather with an inclusivist theology of religious pluralism in which general revelation and world religions provides a knowledge of God that in itself salvific. The latter sort of inclusivism, namely, world religions inclusivism, regards religions as such to be a sufficient means of bringing people to saving faith in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Vatican II and John Paul II do not espouse inclusivism of either sort—general revelation inclusivism or a world religions inclusivism—because neither regard the beliefs and practices of other religions as God’s designed instruments in attaining salvation. Rather, Vatican II and John Paul affirm what has been called accessibilism to distinguish it from inclusivism, which may be broad or narrow. Accessiblism recognizes the individual possibility that an adherent of other religions may access salvation.

The New Testament makes it quite clear that God’s will and desire is that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Pet 3:9). Therefore, in this connection, we can understand that God draws all men to himself by the work of the Spirit through prevenient grace that is mediated by the Holy Spirit. Thisus, in the words of Gaudium et Spes §22: “For since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God alone, in the paschal mystery.” In my judgment, this statement best fits a position appropriately dubbed opaque exclusivism.²¹ Exclusivist because the saving work of Christ is ontologically and causally necessary for the salvation of human beings. But opaque, since the realization of the possibility of salvation of the invincibly ignorant, to which the prevenient grace of God is mediated by the Holy Spirit, is left to God alone.

Fourth, acknowledging unique differences in ideas and tradition between Christianity and all other religions, however, is not enough when it comes to the question of conflicting truth claims. It’s necessary to state, openly, that the central Christian truth claims are alone valid and absolute, and hence logically incompatible with other religious claims. The truth-oriented nature of dialogue is such that the question must be considered not only of truth in general but also of religious disagreement and conflicting truth claims among the religions in particular. The Council isn’t unaware of this question. Its 1991 document Dialogue and Proclamation raised it:

An open and positive approach to other religious traditions cannot overlook the contradictions that may exist between them and Christian revelation. It must, where necessary, recognize that there is incompatibility between some fundamental elements of the Christian religion and some aspects of such traditions.²²

Five, this paragraph brings us to the necessity of interreligious apologetics, and hence the question of epistemic justification is particularly important since “not all religious expressions [involving claims to truth] are valid,”²³ as Paul VI states. The fundamental concepts of truth, rationality, and objectivity, as well as reality and reference, are necessary in order to account for the validity of religious expressions. The Catholic philosophical tradition affirms a cognitive and ontological realism. The former means that reality is knowable, while the latter means “true theories are true in virtue of the nature of objective reality. Truth has its source in reality.”²⁴

The notion of truth here is a realist one. Realism about truth holds that a proposition is true if and only if what that proposition asserts is in fact the case about objective reality; otherwise, it is false. John Paul II writes regarding a philosophy of knowledge that is a scripturally directed epistemology, one that can be of service to theology, is one that affirms the “human capacity to know the truth”—that is, “to come to a knowledge which can reach objective truth by means of the correspondence between thing and intellect (adaequatio rei et intellectus).”²⁵

These five points and their implications have been developed at length throughout this book. I trust this book will contribute to recovering the legacy of Vatican II and its theology of religions, and the question of justification and truth in interreligious apologetics.

Endnotes:

¹ Gaudium et Spes, §45.

² Lumen Gentium, §§16–17.

³ Ad Gentes, §9.

⁴ Nostra Aetate, §2.

⁵ Lumen Gentium, §1.

⁶ Gaudium et Spes, §38.

⁷ Lumen Gentium, §§30–42.

⁸ John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, §95. The quote within this quote is from Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, §18.

⁹ Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, §18. De Ridder and Van Woudenberg, “Referring to, Believing in, and Worshipping the Same God: A Reformed View,” 47.

¹⁰ De Ridder and Van Woudenberg, “Referring to, Believing in, and Worshipping the Same God: A Reformed View,” 47.

¹¹ Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, §31.

¹² John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, May 1, 1991, §25.

¹³ Ridderbos, The Gospel of John, 43.

¹⁴ John Paul II, “To the Roman Curia,” in Interreligious Dialogue, §566.

¹⁵ Trigg, Monotheism and Religious Diversity, 61.

¹⁶ Trigg, Monotheism and Religious Diversity, 36.

¹⁷ Trigg, Monotheism and Religious Diversity, 14, 25.

¹⁸ Trigg, Monotheism and Religious Diversity, 2.

¹⁹ Aidan Nichols, OP and Moyra Doorly, The Council in Question: A Dialogue with Catholic Traditionalism (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2011), 81–83. Nichols clearly distinguishes “criticizing incomplete or unbalanced formulations in the language of the Conciliar texts . . . from the claim that the Council fathers formally committed the Church to doctrinal error” (29–30). The former is within the limits of acceptable criticism, not making one a dissenter, the latter is not.

²⁰ Benedict XVI, “Reflections of His Holiness Benedict XVI Published for the First Time on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Opening of the Second Vatican Council.”

²¹ Helm, “Are They Few That Be Saved?,” 277.

²² Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, §31.

²³ Paul VI, in Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Interreligious Dialogue, §301.

²⁴ Trigg, Reality at Risk, xiv.

²⁵ John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, §82.

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